Making a Mac Installer for Garmin Maps

Why bother? You can include installation instructions, use and copyright information, have version tracking, contact information for errors and upgrades…

A picture is worth a thousand words, adding graphics will help those that either have no experience, or maybe have little or no English abilities. Links to software can be added…

The whole point is to ease the process. What happens when someone just downloads your .tgz file, and then what? If they don’t have MapInstaller installed, where do they get it? How about removing the MapSet? The easier you make it, the smoother it will go.

Making The Installer

Read fully first. Not all steps are required. Use the ones you want, and ditch the ones you don't (that is, as long as they are not required).

We'll pick up with the trail with the .tgz file made from MapConverter...

Make a new folder, naming it for your project and place the .tgz file in it. In this example we are working with the Kabul_City.tgz, and have named our folder Kabul_City:

Make your Read Me with TextEdit and place it in the folder. I have created a file called " Read First":

Dress up the folder as you would like to have it show while installing. (Any of the following steps are optional).

I'm going to rename the File to give it more of a Mac look and feel, let's use "Kabul City v1.02"

Next, let's change the install icon to something custom, this is as simple as selecting the mapfile and opening the information window ( Command I) and pasting a new icon in where the current one is:

Open the View Menu and set the look of the window:

Check the install footprint, Open in Information window of the install folder.
We need the folder size for the disc image, in this case it's 1.7MB.

Give the file name a temp name and select the custom size based on the folder footprint in steps 4&5 above, make it read/write format and select create.

You will now have the following files on the desktop.

Open the top one and set the folder view options to match your work folder and then copy the files from your work folder to the installer:
When you are happy with the look, close the folder and eject it.

Back in Disk Utility, select the install file:

And then select Convert:

Save the file with a work name, with read only as the Image Format:

When it's done you can select Verify Disk.

At this point I would rename the original file by adding rw to the name and removing the install part of the name from the install file to shorten it up.

At this point, the read only file is ready to distribute. You can now upload it as your mac version.